Golf Shot Shaping Tips

Trey Niven - Golf Monthly Top 50 coach

Transcript

00:00So for a golfer it can be really satisfying to be able to shape the ball to the right

00:04and to the left as well. We're on the 18th at the Asprey today, we've got 200 yards

00:09and we've got a big strong breeze off the right today so here I could play either shot,

00:15I could ride the wind off the right or I could play a little fade and hold the ball a little bit

00:19up into the wind. We're going to look at some simple points at setup that's going to really

00:23help you influence hitting both shot shapes and also talk a little bit about the theory,

00:29what's happening at impact to produce those golf shots. So firstly, how do we actually hit a right

00:35to left golf shot, so a draw for a right-handed golfer? Well firstly what we need to talk about

00:40is the club path and the club face angle. So what happens if we're trying to hit a draw, we need to

00:45separate the path from the club face. Now the face is going to start the golf ball wherever it goes and

00:52the path in relation to it is going to make the ball or give the ball some curvature. So if I'm

00:58hitting a draw shot now, I need to start to get my swing direction or my club path a little bit more

01:03right of target. So firstly if I aim a little bit more right and that's with the feet, the knees,

01:09the hips and the shoulders, this is really going to encourage the club path now to go a little bit

01:15more to the right of the target. Now what happens from a setup point of view, if I can put the ball a

01:21little bit further towards the centre of the stance, this is really going to encourage my golf club as

01:27it comes down in the arc, it's going to really encourage a little bit of an earlier hit in this

01:32arc. If I have the ball too far forwards now, this arc is going to start coming in a little bit more

01:37round to the left, encouraging that little bit more of a neutral path. So we're going to put the ball

01:41more in the centre. Now my knees, hips and shoulders are aiming to the right. There's a key part that we need

01:48to do now and that's where the club face is aiming. So I'm going to just turn the club face

01:53a little bit more left so perhaps it's pointing more at the pin and you can see in this setup now

02:00that I've got my feet and everything aiming to the right. This is going to really encourage that

02:04rightward path and you can see the club face now is separated from that. So I'm just going to put a

02:10regular swing on it from here. So the ball's back, everything's aiming right, got the club face left,

02:15regular swing. Let's see how we do.

02:22So we can see that ball there just starting right of the green, just drawing round to the middle there

02:27and that's all come very simply from how I've set up. I haven't changed my swing in any way,

02:33I've just changed the setup. Vice versa now, if we pull another golf ball in here, I'm going to flip

02:38this round now. So I'm going to get my feet, body, knees and everything aiming a little bit more left

02:44of the green. So I'm going to move the ball a little bit more forwards in the stance now. What

02:49this is really going to encourage again, like we spoke about, is that bit of a later hit in the arc,

02:54a bit more swing direction to the left but then I'm going to just make that slight change to the

03:00club face and get that point in a little bit more where I want the ball to finish. So everything's

03:05aiming left, feet, hips, shoulders, club face aiming at the flag and I'm going to try and swing

03:10along the feet line.

03:17We can see that one takes off just left of that pin, fading onto the middle of the green there.

03:24So really, really simple things that you can do, low hanging fruit stuff

03:28at the setup to influence different shot shapes.